Jersey City – James Shea, Jersey City’s new public safety director who begins in his position this week, has spent the past month meeting with local residents and community groups to introduce himself and hear their concerns. Among the top questions asked at these meetings is why have there been so many shootings and murders in Jersey City since the beginning of July.

In light of these incidents, Shea knows he has to hit the ground running. Taking a page out of Mayor Steven Fulop’s playbook, Shea plans to hold three community meetings on public safety at sites throughout the city over the next two weeks.

The first public safety meeting is scheduled to take place on Saturday, Aug. 3 at the Mary McLeod Bethune Community Center, 140 Martin Luther King Dr. at noon.

A second meeting meeting will be held on Monday, Aug. 5 at the Christa McAuliffe School (PS 28), 167 Hancock Ave. at 6:30 p.m. Shea will host a final gathering at the Frank R. Conwell Middle School (MS 4), 107 Bright St., on Thursday, Aug. 15 at 6:30 p.m.

Shea said he wants reassure the community that proactive steps will be taken to stem street crime.

“My first priority when I come in is to get a picture of what is happening, from both sides, from what exactly we have available as police resources and how they’re being deployed, and what’s actually happening out in the neighborhoods and how this recent rash of shootings is manifesting,” Shea told the Reporter Thursday. “The only way to do that is to dig into every single shooting and see if they’re connected to each other, whether they’re connected to any of the usual suspects, meaning gangs or narcotics. You have to take each incident separately and really dig in and learn everything you can about it and compare them to each other and start seeing if you have any commonalities that you can attack.” – E. Assata Wright